


Long Way Home

by kerrykhat



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Crossover, Gen, POV Character of Color
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-19
Updated: 2013-10-19
Packaged: 2018-09-15 19:26:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9252434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kerrykhat/pseuds/kerrykhat
Summary: Martha Jones knew she was in trouble before she opened her eyes.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Response to the prompt "loop" for [](http://tamingthemuse.livejournal.com/profile)[tamingthemuse](http://tamingthemuse.livejournal.com/).

**Title:** Long Way Home  
 **Rating:** PG  
 **Summary:** Martha Jones knew she was in trouble before she opened her eyes.  
 **Disclaimer:** The BBC owns "Doctor Who" and all related characters; Paramount owns "Star Trek" and all related characters; I own nothing  
 **Author's Note:** Response to the prompt "loop" for [](http://tamingthemuse.livejournal.com/profile)[**tamingthemuse**](http://tamingthemuse.livejournal.com/).

**May 11, 2009**

Martha Jones knew she was in trouble before she opened her eyes.

It had been during a routine test of Project Indigo for UNIT, the experimental teleporting technology based off of a recovered vortex manipulator. The scientists involved were taking turns volunteering to test the device and it had been Martha’s turn. She had done this before with no mishaps, transporting from one office to another, and they were gradually starting to expand the test range.

“Test eleven, initiating,” her coworker Dr. Khalil announced, giving Martha an encouraging smile. Martha closed her eyes, pictured the office at the top of UNIT’s tower, and pulled the tabs.

Instead of the slight uncomfortable sensation that she associated with the teleportation vest, Martha felt herself being squeezed and pulled every which way. She felt like she was using Jack’s vortex manipulator from when they were traveling back from the end of the universe. Her breath froze and she felt her chest contract, and she had to force herself not to give into panic and scream into the void. It went on and on and on…

The vortex spat her out and she stumbled to her knees, breathing raggedly as she tried to catch her breath. Martha shuddered and did her best not to throw up. One breath, then two, slowly trying to collect herself and push the pounding of her skull out of her mind, at least for a moment.

Pushing herself to her feet, she opened her eyes and looked around her.

A crowd of curious onlookers surrounded her, their stunned silence broken by a growing stream of whispers. To Martha’s shock, there were several aliens intermingled in the crowd, and they were none that she recognized from her travels with the Doctor or with her time with UNIT. Everybody wore clothing she didn’t recognize, another strike against this being any place that she was remotely familiar with.

Moving past the onlookers—none of them appeared to be an immediate threat—she focused on the surroundings. She scanned the horizon, trying to find any clue as to where and when she might be. A slightly familiar word caught her eye and it took her a moment to recognize it. She nearly laughed when she finally puzzled it out. Of course she landed somewhere in Wales. With her luck, it would be Cardiff.

The hushing of the whispering called Martha’s attention back to the crowd surrounding her. A space appeared in the circle and several humans wearing what she assumed were constabulary uniforms approached her.

“Ma’am? We’d like you to come with us, please,” the lead officer, a pale man in his late thirties, announced when he drew within a yard of her. A slight Welsh accent colored his voice, confirming Martha’s guess about where she had arrived.

“If you tell me where I am, what date it is, and what authority you represent,” she replied, immediately assuming the posture of a UNIT commander talking with a subordinate. Her tactic worked. Martha noted the subtle change in body language of the security officers and resisted the urge to smile. Some things never did change.

“Today is stardate 2255.08, and we represent the Cardiff Constabulary,” the lead officer answered after a moment’s hesitation. He gestured for her to follow him, and, having gotten the information she wanted, Martha followed him. The last thing she needed was to cause more of a scene on this unfamiliar ground.

So, that was two questions answered. Martha wasn’t sure what a “stardate” was, but at least she had confirmation she was in the future and that she was in Cardiff. It could definitely be worse, all things considered.

Martha received the next of what was sure to be many surprises when they reached the sidewalk. It was _moving_ , like those walkways they had in airports, just much less noticeable. Doing her best to hide her surprise, she followed the officers onto the moving sidewalk. Martha kept her eyes firmly ahead of her, resisting the urge to gawk like a tourist. Out of the corner of her eyes, however, she spied sleek buildings and shuttles soaring through the skies, sights that definitely were different from the last time she was in Cardiff.

Fortunately, they didn’t have far to go before she and her escort were stepping off of the walkway and heading into the police station. She found herself led into a shining glass and metal building, through an open lobby, and into an interview room.

 _The more things change,_ she thought to herself amusedly, taking in the simple room with its metal chair and table. It wouldn’t look that out of place in the Law and Order repeats she’d occasionally watch late at night. Without needing an invitation, she sat in the chair and waited for whoever was assigned to interview her. Or interrogate her, if she wanted to be a realist. That actually made much more sense given the circumstances of her arrival.

She absently fingered the tabs of the teleportation vest. Nobody had asked about it, and she wasn’t about to enlighten them to its true purpose. While she was hesitant to use it again, given her current predicament, she would like to keep all her options available.

The door whisked open, and an older man with graying black hair stepped through, a datapad of some sort in his hand. He took the seat across from her and made a show of looking whatever was on the handheld screen in front of him. Martha waited silently for him to finish. Two could play this game.

“If you could please look into this scanner so that we can verify your identity,” the man asked, holding up what Martha could only assume was something to read her retinas. She considered refusing for a brief moment, not sure if her retinal scans from UNIT were still archived, and if they were, what kind of red flags that might raise. But, refusing would only give them another reason to detain her on top of what she was sure were plenty.

Mentally sighing, Martha leaned forward and allowed herself to be scanned.

Something flashed on the pad in bright red letters. Martha glanced down and swallowed another laugh. She really shouldn’t be surprised at this point.

“Contact Jack Harkness?” the man slowly read aloud before looking up at her. “What does that mean?”

“I think it’s referring to a man who goes by Captain Jack Harkness,” Martha answered, doing her best to keep her voice serious. “He used to be involved with something called Torchwood. Flirts like the dickens with anything that moves. I’m not sure what he’s up to now, but my recommendation would be to do what the message says. He doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

A muscle clenched in the man’s jaw and Martha smiled sweetly at him.

“I’ll be right back,” he said curtly. He left as quickly as he had entered, leaving Martha alone again.

Leaning back in the chair, she drummed her fingers against her leg. While Jack may have included that message in her file, there was no guarantee he was actually on planet. And if the man couldn’t get in contact with Jack? What would happen then?

To distract herself, Martha began reciting Shakespeare’s sonnets in her head. One of the more positive legacies from her travels was a renewed interest in the Bard. She had found a worn copy of the sonnets in her room after leaving the Doctor, bookmarked to one about the Dark Lady. She had read through the book several times, finding memorizing the sonnets a way to keep herself distracted. Martha didn’t know how many times she woke up screaming from nightmares, and the only way she was able to calm herself down was by reading from the book. She frowned. She wished she had it with her now.

She didn’t know how long she sat in the room waiting. Somebody came in and gave her a glass of water and a dry chicken sandwich, but made no move to initiate conversation. Martha shrugged and continued her wait. She was taking no news as good news right now.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, the door opened again, admitting the same man as before.

“Please follow me.”

Martha rose to her feet, noting his lack of inflection in his voice, although was that a faint blush in his cheeks? If it was, she had a firm guess as to what put it there.

She followed to what looked like a lounge of some sort. The blinds were closed, but she thought she knew who was waiting inside.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t Martha Jones, voice of a nightingale,” a welcome voice said as soon as she stepped inside.

“Jack!” she exclaimed before she found herself wrapped in a tight, familiar hug. She closed her eyes and breathed in, some of the stress leaving her body. They stood there for a few moments before Martha pulled back and got a good look at him.

“Where’s your coat?” she blurted out the first thing that came to mind. He was wearing a dark, unfamiliar looking uniform with a triangular insignia over his left breast. The face was still the same—she was expecting that, even with the revelation he might one day become the Face of Boe—but the fact that he was wearing something so completely not him shocked her.

“Starfleet is a little less lax about uniform rules than you would expect,” he answered with a shrug.

“Starfleet?” she repeated. “I think you should explain what exactly happened

Jack grimaced slightly. “Yeah, I think I should.” He sighed and gestured at the couch. “It would probably be better if you sat down.”

“What happened? Martha asked again, realization slowly starting to dawn on her. “I-I never returned home, did I? This isn’t just some time loop where I spend time here and then find a way back?” A note of pleading slipped into her voice at the last question, but she didn’t care. She needed to know.

The look on Jack’s face was all the confirmation that Martha needed. She felt like she had been punched in the gut as her breath froze in her chest and she struggled to breathe. Slowly sitting down, she tried to force the words out of her mouth.

“I just _vanished_ , and my family never knew what happened?”

“No, they didn’t.”

Mum. Dad. Leo. Tish. She just disappeared, and they were left wondering if she was gone for good this time. Martha closed her eyes and did her best to swallow the tears that were threatening to fall. Mum, Dad, and Tish were just starting to truly recover from their ordeal of being held captive by the Master during the Year that Never Was.

“What happened with them?” she finally asked when she recovered her voice.

“Your dad withdrew,” Jack answered softly, taking the seat next to her and giving her hand a squeeze. “He never really recovered from the shock. Your mom was quieter, but she grieved and hoped that you’d come back. Your sister, though. Tish surprised us all.”

“How?”

“She started looking into your disappearance and wouldn’t take no for an answer,” Jack said, a small, sad smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Eventually switched over to investigative journalism and joined forces with Sarah Jane Smith, another one of the Doctor’s former companions. There’s still a prestigious award named after her, after her behind the lines reporting during the Eugenics War. She not only managed to survive that, but also World War III, reporting from the front lines the entire time.”

Martha sat silently, processing what Jack had told her. If she wanted to be honest with herself, her parents’ reactions to her disappearance didn’t surprise her. Her dad, especially what the Master had put him through, had become fragile. It wouldn’t have taken much to break him into bits, and one of his children vanishing without a trace? That would have done it. It has been different with her mum. Being a prisoner for a year had uncovered and strengthened the steel core that Martha had always known was in Francine. Tish becoming a journalist, though? Jack was right, that was a surprise, although she knew how stubborn her older sister could be.

“And Leo?”

“I think in some ways, no knowing what happened during that year hurt him,” Jack confessed quietly. “He just couldn’t relate to what everybody else was going through. He tried, but in the end, he drifted apart from your family, although he and Tish reconnected once the Eugenics Wars were over.” He paused, before starting again. “I’m still in touch with some of Tish’s descendents. If you want…”

“Maybe… maybe later,” Martha answered quietly. She felt hollow, frozen. She had been hoping that there was a solution to all of this. That she would be able to get back home and see her family again. Watch her niece grow up. Be there for when Tish finally found the one. Watch the wounds the Master had inflicted on her parents finally heal. Finally feel like they were whole again after being broken for so long, even before her parents’ divorce.

But that would never happen now. And Martha, strong and unflinching for so long in the face of so much adversity, finally broke down and wept.

Warm arms circled her and drew her in, and she clutched to Jack like he too might vanish on her.

She didn’t know how long they sat there, Jack comforting her while sobs wracked her body. She wept for the family she’d been slowly getting back, only to have them snatched from her. She wept thinking about what they must have gone through, waiting and hoping for her return. And, most of all, she wept for herself. All the pain, all the heartache from her travels with the Doctor and the Year that Never Was that she had kept bottled up finally rushed out of her, finding their release.

Hadn’t she done enough? Hadn’t she suffered enough? And yet the universe still seemed content to seek new was to strike her down just as she was getting her feet under her.

Finally, the tears gradually stopped flowing, but it did nothing to ease the empty feeling in her chest. Slowly, she pulled herself away from Jack and gave him as best a watery smile as she could manage.

“You’ve been waiting for me all this time,” she told him, “and here I go soaking your nice, new uniform.”

Jack offered a smile in return, although there was a hint of sadness about it. “No worries, Martha Jones. For you, I’d let you soak my dress uniform right before a meeting with the admirals.”

He stood up and extended a hand towards her. “Come on. Let’s go to my place and I can fill you in on what you missed.”

Martha took his hand and let him pull her to her feet. Wrapping an arm around his waist, they walked out of the lounge and into a future that Martha knew she wasn’t quite ready for, but would have to learn how to survive in.


End file.
